"Tropic Thunder" is ridiculous and deeply enjoyable."

That said it all, really, but somehow you managed to say a lot more about a movie that is trying to be really good at being really dumb, and it was all really good. Thanks.

Really.

I run. I hate joggers who say they run. I ran Boston and I can't stand it when a person who did an 8 hour marathon crows about finishing to me as if we are somehow brothers in arms.

But then my sis, who was born with a crippling birth defect, took up running at the age of 35. As a kid she was constantly warned that the 7 major surgeries she endured before the age of 6 would render her too arthritic to walk by age 20. Total hip replacement has always been a certainty of her life ( and took place a month ago - a 9 hour operation).

But back to my point - 5 years ago she decided to run a marathon, this girl-turned-woman who has never, ever walked without a weird shuffling limp. Her let has these big Frankenstein-y scars, because back when they pioneered the groundbreaking surgeries on her body, she wasn't really expected to be around long enough to care about scars.

She ran a 6 hour marathon. I, her 3 hour marathoner sister, ran next to her. Let me tell you something - it takes one thing to be world class. A big, huge, mind-breaking thing some people never ever can get (maybe I came close: I was a scholarship athlete and played semi-pro in my sport and know about 6 hour practice days and hoping the nerve-induced pee trickles aren't showing on my uniform as I take my place before the eyes of thousands). It takes another thing - a different thing, an important thing - to give it all you've got and still be pretty bad, and be OK with it because the cards you were dealt means you can't really expect anything more - that the great American elixir of *trying* won't get you further, no matter what.

Your pov is not beastly so much as other-wordly - cut yourself some slack. And realize that empathy can take you places that your Olypian body can't.

Tracy didn't vow not to have sex with someone other than her partner.

My dad was a champion cheap beer drinker and would add to this list:

Natural Light (half the calories all the taste, naturally!)

Keystone Light

Buckhorn Beer

Rheingold (drink Rheingold the dry beer, buy Rheingold when you buy beer!)

The In-Bev takeover will not change that. In-Bev isn't out to change A-B beers, it's out to take advantage of A-B distribution for it's other products.

sorry, weird cut and paste thing happened to my comment

She understands the drive to use steroids, it won't lift mediocre athletes to greatness, it's already in line with other abuses that she and other athletes willingly endure regardless of cost. he personal morality of it is simply not a factor for Sey or many other athletes at her level. Regardless of the injuries and health consequences.

I've come to the conclusion it is best to allow enhanced performance. Let the steroid-inflated compete. All they have to do is register as an enhanced performed.

Non-enhanced performers take a drug test, and are reqeaired to T swear to the validity of the test on their honor as an athlete - this is done in a ceremonial way, and videotaped, as well as signed, like a Declaration. Any athlete caught lying about their status as unenhanced is banned for life. People are often reluctant to break specific vows they've made publicly.

Then all athletes compete, like always, except performances from 'enhanced' athletes will be marked with an * in the record books. Performance from unenhanced athletes - no *. The public will, naturally, root for and prefer winners who are au natural. That might be enough to stop some athletes from doping. But even if they don't - everyone will always scan the list of winners and announce the first 'au natural' one to be the 'real' winner, while all the drug takers are dismissed as phonies.

Take away the incentive to lie by making it a personal choice to succeed by natural means or not.